After Tuneup for Trials, American Swimmers Evaluate Potential

Michael Phelps swimming in the 200-meter individual medley on Sunday at the national championships.

Kirby Lee / Reuters

By KAREN CROUSE

August 10, 2014

IRVINE, Calif. — If there was any lesson to take away from the most important domestic meet before the 2016 Olympic trials it was this: Michael Phelps hates to lose, and the other Americans would do well to adopt the same attitude, because no one’s global supremacy is secure.

The United States long-course national championships last week produced only two swims that were the fastest in the world this year — Katie Ledecky’s world record in the 400 freestyle and Phelps’s preliminary swim in the 100-meter butterfly. Phelps’s loss in the final, by .01-second to Tom Shields, epitomized his first big test in his comeback. He was his usual hyper-focused but relaxed self in the morning but became uncharacteristically uptight at night, owing to his lack of race conditioning.

He joked about being an old man, but at 29, Phelps is wise enough to appreciate that one cannot jump back in the water at any age after an 18-month layoff and expect miracles (although his world-best time in the 100, which was faster than his 2012 gold medal time at the Olympics, came close).

Phelps saved his best race for last, nearly coming from behind Sunday night to beat his longtime nemesis, Ryan Lochte, in the 200-meter individual medley. Lochte held off Phelps by .05-seconds with a clocking of 1 minute 56.50. After finishing seventh in the 100 freestyle, second in the 100 butterfly and sixth in the 100 backstroke in his other races, Phelps expressed satisfaction with his I.M. and said he would leave the meet more determined than discouraged. “Because I know whatever I really put my mind to I know I can accomplish,” he said.

While Phelps might have been the headliner, Ledecky became the little black dress of American swimming; unpretentious, regal and ridiculously versatile. The range she showed in winning the 200-, 400- and 800 freestyles — two months after setting the world record in the 1,500-meter freestyle — is reminiscent of Debbie Meyer in the 1960s, Shirley Babashoff in the 1970s, Cynthia Woodhead in the 1980s (substituting the 100 for the 1,500) and Janet Evans in the 1990s.

Ledecky, 17, relishes racing, which is a good thing, because she figures to face stiffer competition from the Australians at the Pan Pacific Championships. Of Ledecky’s three winning swims, only the 400 freestyle, in which she set a world record, was the fastest of 2014. She is ranked No. 1 in the 800, but it is off her world-record effort in June. Her winning time here of 8 minutes 18.47 was slower than Britain’s Jazmin Carlin’s 8:18.11 from the Commonwealth Games. Ledecky’s 200 time is No. 2 in the world, behind Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom.

When Ledecky swims next, after a 10-day hiatus, on Australia’s Gold Coast, the Australians, including Jessica Ashwood and Bronte Barratt, should be nipping at her heels.

Micah Lawrence, left, and Jessica Hardy shared the 100-meter breaststroke title at the long-course national championships, a critical domestic meet in advance of the 2016 Olympic trials.

Kirby Lee / Reuters

Phelps, and Lochte were among 14 holdovers from the 24-man 2012 Olympic team to make this year’s Pan Pacific Championships team, from which the squad for the 2015 World Championships team also will be picked. Ledecky and Missy Franklin, who won three events in the first four days, are among the 12 holdovers from the 25-woman team that competed in London.

The midway point between Summer Olympics is always an intersection; a place where veterans on their way out of the sport and youngsters moving up converge.

“I just think it’s a really transitional period,” said Teri McKeever, the women’s coach at Cal-Berkeley who will oversee the United States women’s team in Australia.

Her male counterpart, Bob Bowman, in a nod to Phelps and Lochte, who have seven Olympic appearances and 33 Olympic medals (23 gold) between them, said: “While we do have our team go-to guys here, they may not necessarily be the go-to guys. Some people are going to have to step up if we’re going to be competitive in relays, and I’m very excited to see that happen.”

The American men have some catching up to do. In the 100 freestyle, Nathan Adrian is the only American swimmer, at No. 3, in the top 14 (Australians occupy the top two spots). In the 200 freestyle, the top-ranked American is No. 14 Matt McLean (three Australians are ahead of him).

Before the meet started, the veterans at the intersection of their careers included Shields, who competed in his first Olympic trials in 2008, at 15, but never had made an Olympic, World Championship or Pan Pacific Championships team.

After his victories in the 100 butterfly and 200 butterfly, Shields is all-in. Just don’t call him a rookie.

“I’ve been around for a really long time,” he said. His attitude suggested that with first-timers like him, who needs to fret over the dearth of veterans?